Media nations: Northern Ireland 2021 Published 5 August 2021 Contents Section Overview ................................................................................................................................. 3 TV services and devices ........................................................................................................... 5 TV viewing trends .................................................................................................................... 9 TV programming for and from Northern Ireland ................................................................... 23 Radio and audio .................................................................................................................... 33 Overview This Media Nations: Northern Ireland report reviews the main trends in the television and audio- visual sector as well as the audio industry in Northern Ireland. The report provides updates on several datasets, including data collected directly from licensed television and radio broadcasters (for output, spend and revenue in 2020), as well as Ofcom’s own consumer research and BARB data (for audience consumption). Due to the Covid pandemic, some of the usual data sources – RAJAR (radio listening) and PSB Tracker (audience opinions) were not available this year. In addition to this Northern Ireland report, there are separate reports for the UK as a whole, Scotland, and Wales, as well as an interactive data report. Key points TV services and devices • Paid-for satellite and cable television services from Sky or Virgin Media were present in four in ten homes in Northern Ireland (40%) as of Q3 2020. • More than half of households in Northern Ireland (57%) have at least one subscription video-on- demand (SVoD) service from companies such as Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ and Now TV. • Netflix is still the largest, with more than half (52%) of households having a subscription, followed by Amazon Prime Video (27%) and Disney+ (8%). • The BBC iPlayer is the most popular broadcast video-on-demand (BVoD) player in Northern Ireland; it was watched in six in ten Northern Ireland homes (61%) at the beginning of 2021. The ITV Hub (42%) was the next most popular BVoD player, followed by All4 (33%) and My5 (18%). 3 Broadcast TV viewing • People in Northern Ireland spent an average of 4 hours 19 minutes per day watching something on the television screen in 2020, up by 36 minutes since 2019. • In 2020, broadcast TV viewing in Northern Ireland bucked the long-term trend of decline and increased for the first time in a decade. This can largely be attributed to the pandemic. • On average, people in Northern Ireland spent 3 hours 8 minutes every day watching broadcast television in 2020, 14 minutes more than in 2019. • In the week commencing 23 March 2020, when the UK Prime Minister announced the first lockdown, average daily viewing of broadcast television peaked at 3 hours 42 minutes in Northern Ireland. • Viewing declined as lockdown restrictions were eased, but began to increase again from August, climbing to a second peak in November and December, as restrictions were tightened and people in Northern Ireland spent most of the holiday period at home. • Older people in Northern Ireland continue to watch more broadcast TV than younger viewers. Those aged 55+ watched 5 hours 39 minutes on average a day in 2020, up by 15% compared to 2019, while those aged 16-24 watched just 48 minutes of broadcast TV a day, down 23% compared to 2019. Spend on programming for and from Northern Ireland • There was a 30% decrease in spending on first-run content for viewers in Northern Ireland in 2020, with spend on current affairs decreasing the most, at 43%. News accounts for the largest share of first-run spend (43%) in Northern Ireland. • BBC hours of first-run content in Northern Ireland dropped by 6% in 2020 to 568 hours. Overall, news content makes up the largest amount of the BBC’s output for Northern Ireland, comprising 51% of first-run hours. • Some 1.6% of qualifying network spend on the PSB channels was on Northern Ireland-based productions in 2020. Radio and audio • More than eight in ten adults (84%) in Northern Ireland listen to the radio every week. • More than half of all homes in Northern Ireland have a smart speaker (53%). The Amazon Echo is by far the most popular type (found in 67% of homes in Northern Ireland that have a smart speaker). • The most popular reasons given by users in Northern Ireland for using smart speakers were to listen to music via a streaming service like Spotify, Apple Music or Deezer (65%), a live radio station (64%) or to get weather information (37%). • It was a challenging year for the commercial radio sector, with revenues per head down 10% in 2020. 4 TV services and devices Introduction Long-established television platforms such as Freeview, which is available through digital terrestrial television (DTT), satellite – either from Sky or Freesat – and cable (Virgin Media) are still the main channels for delivering entertainment services to people’s homes. These platforms rely on a variety of types of infrastructure to deliver their services. Freeview uses a network of transmitters across Northern Ireland to deliver television services into people’s homes through a rooftop aerial and is widely, although not universally, available across Northern Ireland. Satellite is universally available,1 while cable coverage is available mainly in built-up urban areas. However, the main trend in recent years has been the rapid rise of new subscription video-on- demand (SVoD) services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, and this continued throughout 2020. Although these SVoD services are mainly taken in addition to content on other TV platforms, they are having a hugely disruptive effect on the television sector, gaining new customers and affecting how and where people are watching TV-like content. In response, traditional public service broadcasters are adapting how they deliver content to viewers. Alongside their linear TV services, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 all have their own broadcaster video-on-demand (BVoD) services. These SVoD and BVoD services are delivered over the internet through connected TVs as well as mobile phones, tablets and PCs. Traditional TV platforms Paid-for satellite services are in around a third of Northern Ireland homes Just over half of homes have a free TV service only – either Freeview or Freesat. Televisions are an established fixture in our homes, with more than nine in ten households in Northern Ireland (96%) having a TV set in 2020.2 But the way we access services on our televisions is changing, primarily because of the amount of content that is being delivered and accessed through the internet. Traditional paid-for television services such as satellite (mainly Sky) and cable services (Virgin Media) were present in 40% of homes in Northern Ireland in 2020. Paid-for satellite accounts for most of these (31%), with Virgin Media’s cable service present in just 9% of households in Q3 2020, down from 11% in Q1. DTT services only (delivered through an aerial) account for most free TV viewing (46%), with free satellite present in just 5% of homes, largely through Freesat. Fifty-one per cent of Northern Ireland households had only DTT or free satellite in 2020. 1 Based on the availability of a line-of-sight path to the satellite 2 BARB Establishment Survey Q3 2020 5 5 Only a small proportion of homes in Northern Ireland (5%) had an internet protocol television service (IPTV). These are delivered through set-top boxes from providers including TalkTalk and BT and offer a Freeview service alongside pay-TV channels delivered through an internet connection. Figure 1: Take-up of TV platforms in Northern Ireland Pay cable or satellite 40% Pay satellite 31% Virgin Media 9% IPTV (BT 5% Vision/TalkTalk/YouView/Plusnet) Any traditional free TV 51% DTT only 46% Free satellite 5% Source: BARB Establishment Survey Q3 2020 Subscription video-on-demand As in other parts of the UK, take-up of subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) services from providers like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, delivered over the internet, continues to gather pace among households in Northern Ireland. Nine in ten (89%) of households in Northern Ireland had an internet connection at the beginning of 2021 (84% had fixed broadband).3 A combination of factors made 2020 a landmark year for subscription video-on-demand (SVoD), both in the UK and internationally; total global SVoD subscriptions increased by an estimated 300 million, passing the one billion threshold to reach 1.18 billion. Disney+ has become the third most popular subscription video-on-demand service in Northern Ireland In Northern Ireland, SVoD services saw an uplift in 2020, with 57% of households subscribing to at least one of them. Netflix is still the largest; more than half (52%) of households have a subscription, followed by Amazon Prime Video (27%) and Disney+ (8%). 3 Ofcom Technology Tracker Q1 2021 6 Figure 2: Use of SVoD services in Northern Ireland (% of households) Source: BARB Establishment Survey Q3 2020 Broadcaster video-on-demand BBC iPlayer is the most popular PSB service among viewers in Northern Ireland The broadcaster video-on-demand (BVoD) players from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 are also proving popular with viewers. The most popular, the BBC iPlayer, was watched by six in ten of Northern Ireland homes (61%) at the beginning of 2021. The ITV Hub (42%) was the next most popular BVoD player, followed by All4 (33%) and My5 (18%).4 4 Ofcom Technology Tracker Q1 2021 7 Figure 3: Use of main broadcaster video-on-demand (BVoD) services in Northern Ireland (households) Source: Ofcom Technology Tracker 2021 Four in ten homes in Northern Ireland use YouTube Research carried out for Ofcom’s Online Nation 2021 report5 showed that in 2020 UK adult internet users spent an average of 3 hours 37 minutes a day online on computers, tablets and smartphones; 9 minutes more than in 2019.6 Most of this growth was due to time spent using connected TVs – whether for video- on-demand viewing, online gaming or watching YouTube or TikTok.